The wheels are now rolling on filming for “Batman: The Exorcism of Bruce Wayne” and as a bonus for our Kickstarter backers the crew have put together a short film “Batman: Secrets and Lies” that is available now on YouTube.

It’s important to get a cast and crew working together as early as possible and with so much work to be done on the mammoth task of filming the main script, we all agreed that knocking the rough edges of performances and behind the scenes work with a few shorts would be a great idea.

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are deadBenjamin Franklin

Secrets and Lies is a little peek into the world that Bruce Wayne lives in when he’s not in the cowl and also how his support network operates and, in particular, the relationship between Alfred Pennyworth and Vicki Vale. Over the years Vicki Vale has been portrayed as everything from a vain society gossip columnist to a hard-nosed investigative reporter. In the modern world where many people read the most important news of the day in between two cat memes on social media, it felt to me like Vicki might finally have hit her stride. Vicki is the walking talking queen of social media in Gotham City – who better to cover Bruce Wayne’s tracks?

Having concluded that I am not enough of a smug, infuriating polymath… I’ve decided to learn to cook. It’s been going on for a while, but I thought I’d start the food section of my blog with a snapshot of how limited my cooking skills were at the start of this year.

Basically, I could toast bread, poach an egg, and reheat stuff. Admittedly my poached eggs were, and still are, art but as for the rest… Well, the journey to culinary wisdom begins here!

The script for our not for profit fan film, “Batman: The Exorcism of Bruce Wayne”, is now complete and in the hands of the cast and crew.

I’m hugely excited by the script – it was immense fun to write. Playing in my ersatz DC toybox has been slightly addictive and the toughest thing about completing this script was accepting that it did have to end.

Hopefully BTEOBW will be a success and I’ll take a trip back into my Gotham some time soon.

For now it’s a waiting game as the cast begin working of their performances, and the script hasn’t pulled any punches in what it asks of them, and the crew begin assembling the real world versions of the things in my head.

Right now I’ve seen costumes, some props, and the fight team have been hard at work turning our actors into fighters so that they can deliver the action sequences in the way that we want.

To help our potential Kickstarter backers get a feel for the sort of film we are hoping to make, and the quality of the output our team are capable of as well, we have started filming a series of short “one shots”. Just a few minutes long each, they are all set in the world of “The Exorcism of Bruce Wayne” and tie in with the main story.

We already shot the first overnight in Cardiff, “THINGS IN THE NIGHT”, and I think Pete looks fantastic in his Batman costume. This isn’t the costume for the main movie, but it more than looks the part already.

Co-writer, co-director, all co-p. Terry Cooper has an update for us, and what an update it is!

Firstly, have a premier date (also known as “The New and Terrifying Deadline which Must Not be Missed”)!

Currently we are still in post, but CG work is underway and, having seen the edit, I can tell not only is the film really starting to shape up but, also, there is a hell of a lot of work still happening and still to be done.

I sat in on a day’s editting and we added about ten minutes of footage to the film. This was roundly considered to be a good day. It’s time consuming, pain-staking, incredibly detailed work – but it is absolutely essential. The difference between ten minutes properly editted and ten minutes just shoved on the end of the film-so-far is astronomical. Film-so-far, learn to love your editor!

There is also an update on Kickstarter rewards (in short, they are coming!) and the small matter of our teaser trailer.

I’ve seen the first and second drafts of the teaser trailer and they are amazing. I’ve watched the main edit so many times I’ve become ever so slightly jaded about it – familiarity, even with something like this, breeds a little contempt over time – but the teaser has been a real tonic to this. The addition of music over the top helps enormously, which has made me very excited about what our composer will create for us, and there are some great shots in there.

I don’t know when the teaser will “drop” (that’s what the kids say, right?) but I’m really hoping people, especially our Kickstarter backers, will love it.

There is still a long way to go, but the commitment of the team behind the camera to finishing this film to the highest possible standard is unshakeable. After all, we’ve only got until Christmas…